Making A Light Using A Broken PS2 Controller

 I had a PS2 controller that no longer worked and rather then just chucking it away I thought I would do something with it. It was a clear one so my first thought was to put some lights inside it to create a nice lamp and that's exactly what I did.

The first thing I did was open it up and take out everything that was inside. You need a really small screwdriver for some parts but overall this was very easy to do. The next important thing to do is clean it, you wouldn't believe how much dust hides in these things.

Crochet Horror Blanket

This blanket came about because I was having a conversation with my sister (who is a horror fan) and she said I couldn't make a horror themed baby blanket. I took that as a challenge and started working on a design.

Working with pixel art a lot I decided to do it in fillet stitch as it would be easy for me to make a design. I was going to make it in white so it still looked like a baby blanket even though the theme was horror. I then chose the film to base it on, IT!

It crosses the baby theme (clowns/balloons) and the horror theme so I thought it would work really well.

It actually took longer to map out the design and make the pattern then it did to stitch up, which I now see is the case for most of the fillet stitch projects I make.

Here is the blanket...

Do you think it works as a baby blanket? I do. No one I knew was having a baby so I decided to make three more different designs and put them together to make an adult size blanket. Off I went to design 3 more.

A Crochet Christmas - pt 3

 Part 3 of a crochet Christmas is what I received as presents that are to do with crochet this Christmas.

First is this Nightmare Before Christmas Crochet set. It includes everything to make Jack and Sally but also includes a book of patterns for a lot of the other characters too as well as an extra pattern for a wall hanging. I think I might have a go at making Oogie first, I already have a yarn I think will work nicely for him and it looks like a nice simple pattern to start off with.

A Crochet Christmas - pt 2

 Here is part 2 of the crochet Christmas, this time presents that aren't blankets.

I had a go at making crochet figures and some came out rather cute if I do say so myself.

The first lot is The SlashStreet Boys, if you don't know who they are check them out on YouTube. They are horror characters that do horror versions of BackStreet Boys songs. As they are meant to be a boyband I decided to have them dressed in matching colours which may have been a bad idea. These were for my sister and she didn't recognise Jason so maybe I should have kept them in their normal colours.

A Crochet Christmas - pt 1

 This year was a very crafty Christmas. I decided to make most people their gifts myself, though I am always nervous about giving handmade gifts this year I thought what the hell I will do it anyway.

With all the fuel payments going up I thought a nice handy gift would be blankets so that was my main idea and was what most people got. I'm not the quickest crocheter so I started in September, that was also partly because I was making my sister a blanket for her birthday in November which I now remember I haven't done a post for so that will coming soon whoops.

I gave myself plenty of time just in case I lost my mojo and had to stop crocheting for a few days but I didn't. I was in crochet mode most of the time and finished with plenty of time to spare.

I was making multiple blankets at the same time while I waited on different colour yarn to arrive as there was some I couldn't find in local shops.

The first blanket I completed was a black and purple one for my sister. The black is just basic granny squares and the purples are fillet stitch featuring cats, skulls and rock hand signs.

Qmee Review: Getting Paid For Online Surveys

Through these times everyone is tightening those purse strings so a few extra pound might come in handy and I came across a really simple way of earning some.

Paid surveys! It's not a new concept but I have came across a site/app that's really useful. This is from my own personal experience, I'm not affiliated with them I just think there's a few people out there that would find this site handy.

Qmee is both a desktop site and app where you can make money doing surveys. This is no get rich quick scheme, the surveys can take up to 20mins and can be for 9p, 32p, £2.20 and anything in between and possibly more but they are few and far between.

Crochet Hexagon Cardigan

 I thought I would have a go at crocheting a cardigan. There's a really simple one that's rather popular at the moment that I decided to have a go at. It's called a hexagon cardigan, it's very beginner friendly. All you need to do is crochet 2 large hexagons and attach them together.

I had this lacey yarn for a while and decided to use that to make a light cardigan. 

Using Up My Stash

 Like a lot of crafters I have so many craft supplies that need to be used and that includes a hell of a lot of yarn. There was a lot of half used balls and smaller balls of random colours that were too small to use in any other project so I decided to use up my yarn stash on a project to brighten up one of my cupboards.

It's a fairly large storage cupboard but it's not overly tall, you need to crawl to get into it. The carpet in there is rubbish as you can see but and it's a private rented property I'm not spending my money replacing it so I planned on making a large scrap blanket to put in there to make it look more cosy. 

Crochet Care Bear

I like to make gifts for people at Christmas for that personal touch and this year is no different. I try to make things a bit more personal rather then just buying something from the shops that everyone else has (not to say shop brought items can't mean something too, it's also just an excuse for me to buy new craft supplies and makes stuff).

One of the gifts I made is a crochet Care Bear, yes I hear you, I know you can buy them in the shops but this one is different. It's a Don't Care Bear.

I found a tutorial on YouTube for Sunshine Bear and adapted that to make this one. There was a lot of prep work for this working out the pattern as the tutorial just showed the number of stitches in each row so I had to work out when to increase and decrease the stitches.

It took a while but I finally got the pattern written down and could start.

Making Mandalas in GIMP

 GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) now has a feature where you can easily make your own mandalas.

If you didn't know, GIMP is like paint on steroids. you can edit pictures create posters, make gifs and much more and it's free. One of their newer features allows you to easily make your very own mandala drawings. Me personally, I can't draw anything symmetrically so I need a program to do that part for me and this does the job nicely. There are other programs that do this too but I already use GIMP so it was really handy when they brought out this feature.